Social market economy, atbp for the presidentiables

WITH intermittent snowfall generating outside temperature around the low teens and with Omicron lurking about this small farming community, more time has been allotted to reading posts of my friends on social media networks Facebook, Messenger and Viber, comfortably nestled before a faux fireplace. Separating the chaff from the grain has always been time wasting but not with these bloggers who post stimulating content. Claire Carlos, an author and political technocrat par excellence, is one of those that dish out short staccato-like numbered arguments, parsing complex problems, reducing them to bite-size morsels with clarity of which only an accomplished classroom schoolmarm is capable. Her thoughts on imposing discipline on logical processes explained how past president Fidel V. Ramos (FVR) concocted his "complete staff work" — a mantra many of us working under FVR understood only too well.

But the country's concerns go beyond — poverty alleviation, corruption, prohibited drugs, bureaucracy reform, foreign policy, the West Philippine Sea, etc. I refer to another blogger posting his 10 cents worth, which nonetheless are thought-provoking. Norman Madrid, a retired New York-based economist, posted eight-point policy initiatives, foremost of which was the amendment of the 1987 Constitution, striking out the anti-foreign direct investments (FDI) provisions (for details, friend him and access his FB). This echoes our Centrist Democratic (CD) position, articulated well by another prolific blogger, Orion Perez D, an advocate of the federal-parliamentary government and economic liberalization.